Five subcultures co-exist within the Home Care Service setting: dissenting, orthogonal, enhancing, deferential, and the counter-culture. Some are similar to each other, but they still differ in handling particular issues. For instance, the deferential and enhancing subcultures are close in their organizational core, but the latter focuses on rationalizing support through presenting an organization’s values as rightful while the former expects respect by default. The dissenting subculture is an instance of a counter-culture, but it is less direct in opposing the dominant subculture and focuses on promoting changes within it. Meanwhile, the orthogonal subculture has some dissenting and enhancing elements, and it aims to establish new proposals in a non-radical way.
Bloor and Dawson’s characterization is useful in a way that it helps differentiate between the shades of the counter-culture and the organizational subculture. Those specifications are relevant to the medical field and reveal its uniqueness in contrast to other spheres with subcultures.
An organizational culture seems to exist within the context, as it is something that should be shared by all members regardless of their subcultures. It may combine various aspects of those, and the enhancing and deferential ones seem to support the organizational culture the most, but they are unique entities that represent the values of a particular group.
Two of the subcultures are explicitly stated to promote change (the enhancing and dissenting ones), so the foundation exists. However, the dominant organizational culture should also welcome novelty; otherwise, it might remain completely static.
While it is true that it is in the top management’s best interests to support culture, those values that benefit only a small group are hardly viable and guarantee an organization’s stability. Whether subcultures will be marginalized also depends on the organization’s culture’s inclination to change and diversity. A healthy organization would want smaller groups within it also feel represented.
A fragmentary perspective would have made the article focus on how the subcultures function to address a specific issue. The details of their nature would have been omitted, so the reader would determine it based on a subculture’s attitude in a particular situation. An integration perspective would have focused on the shared values within all subcultures.
Critique
An opinion that strong cultures hinder creativity and change is common, although it is not necessarily true. They value stability, which is essential for an organization’s well-being, but also acknowledge the need for progress, no matter how slow it may be. It can be argued to what extent strong cultures encourage creativity and how they maintain the right balance between the established and new norms.
An organization with a strong culture aims to remain stable, but it should not be static. Today, creativity is linked with success, so it is beneficial to encourage it (Amiri, Qayoumi, and Soltani, 2017). Individual innovations serve as a bridge that allows employees to influence organizational culture (Szczepańska-Woszczyna, 2015). Successful strong culture organizations without a focus on innovations may exist, but their position will not last (Ali Taha, Sirkova, and Ferencova, 2016). It is important to maintain stability, but it should not come at the expense of individuality and creativity.
In conclusion, while an organization with a strong culture should be concerned with retaining its core values, it should not discourage innovation, which is the main basis for success. The National Health Service has faced the need to implement innovations, and it seems to be the right remedy (Mannion and Davies, 2018). However, changes are not supposed to be random; they should enhance the organization’s existing advantages and compensate for the flaws.
Reference List
Ali Taha, V., Sirkova, M. and Ferencova, M. (2016) ‘The impact of organizational culture on creativity and innovation’, Polish Journal of Management Studies, 14, pp. 7-17.
Amiri, S.R.S., Qayoumi, A. and Soltani, M. (2017) ‘Study the relationship between organization culture and employee’s creativity in cultural organizations: a case study’, Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (Oman Chapter), 6(10), pp. 1-8.
Mannion, R. and Davies, H. (2018) ‘Understanding organisational culture for healthcare quality improvement’, BMJ, 363(8178), pp. 4907-4911.
SzczepaÅ„ska-Woszczyna, K. (2015) ‘Leadership and organizational culture as the normative influence of top management on employee’s behaviour in the innovation process’, Procedia Economics and Finance, 34, pp. 396-402.